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Friday, August 31, 2012

Best of the Week #74

Guess what I’m doing this weekend? Leaving the city behind and going camping in West Virginia! Yes that’s right, Operation SpeedyKate and Mollie Conquer the Wilderness (shorter version: Operation Wild) will soon be under way. I’m super-psyched to leave the city for a whole three days!

In a recent commercial you've seen 115 times, American marathoner Ryan Hall listens to The Odyssey as he runs, all thanks to AT&T's impressively expansive 4G network.

The inevitable question: How many miles did Ryan Hall cover while listening to Homer’s epic poem?

If only the answer were that simple. A close reading reveals that Hall, not known in running circles for taking shortcuts, seems to have skipped some of the performance. When the commercial starts, the time on his phone is 8:07 a.m. When he begins listening to Moby Dick (a 21-hour audiobook in its own right), the phone reads 7:12pm. That means that Hall, if he never hit pause along the way, listened to 11:05:00 of The Odyssey. What happened to those missing 2 hours, 13 minutes, and 46 seconds? Given that the gap in the Watergate tapes ran just 18.5 minutes, this AT&T commercial leaves us to ponder whether Ryan Hall is seven times trickier than Nixon.

Of course, the challenge is how to get from a to b: how to get from a weak democracy with a powerful military to a strong democracy with a military that holds a narrower conception of its own role in the society? Time, and hard work. Legitimacy and norms do not happen overnight, no matter how much international organizations like NATO try to inculcate civilian control of the military. Birthing these norms requires powerful individuals to be strong enough to decline power and to refrain from taking it.

6. Balsamic Coffee Reduction -- This tasty glaze is an easy and delicious addition to any salad (and especially tomato and mozzarella based ones). Combine 1 cup of coffee, 1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, and the zest of a lemon to a small saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat until the mixture thickens to coat the back of a spoon. Drizzle away!

2. When 24/7 fast food joints shutdown their ice cream machine because it’s nighttime. Milkshake or ice cream cravings are intense and passionate, so the only real way of halting such powerful desires is the actual consumption of one.

7. Trying to distinguish the difference between sheer boredom and actual hunger. At times they can be indistinguishable, resulting in minor gluttony.